Advocate: Crash underscores need for hands-free bill

By Chris LisinskiState House News Service

Monday

Aug 26, 2019 at 7:41 PMAug 26, 2019 at 7:45 PM

BOSTON — The scene goes from commonplace to near-tragic in a span of four seconds.

As the road bends around to the left, one car continues in a straight line onto the grass before violently crashing through a utility pole and flipping over. In a video of the crash posted this month by the Berlin Police Department, the vehicle's brake lights do not turn on until a moment before impact.

The operator sustained only minor injuries before being cited for texting behind the wheel, but advocates see the incident as a warning of what will continue to happen if a Beacon Hill stalemate over distracted-driving legislation continues.

"That article and the video link shared by the Berlin Police Department speaks for itself," said Richard Levitan, CEO of the TextLess Live More group. "Any delay to getting this signed into law has the potential to cost lives."

Levitan, whose daughter Merritt died in 2013 after being struck by a distracted driver, has been one of many pushing state lawmakers to clamp down on virtually all handheld device use behind the wheel. On the legislative front, Sen. Mark C.W. Montigny, D-New Bedford, has long championed the cause in the Senate.

A 2010 state law bans texting while driving, but police view it as difficult to enforce and the measure has done little to prevent the growing problem of distraction.

This session, the House and Senate both passed different versions of bills that would allow drivers only a single tap or swipe to activate hands-free mode on a device and would forbid all other use.

In an email to legislators this month acquired by the News Service, Levitan passed along a link to the Berlin video, warning that the crash could have resulted in "the loss of another mother, father, daughter, sister, brother, son, grandchild."

He urged a six-member conference committee charged in June with privately negotiating distracted driving legislation to agree on a version that's been stuck in legislative limbo for close to four weeks.

Both sides acknowledged they had reached an "agreement in principle" hours before the end of a marathon July 31 formal session. Legal counsel for the two branches reviewed the document and prepared it to be filed, according to Rep. William Straus, D-Mattapoisett, the committee's House chair.

But only the three House conferees signed off, and none of the three senators involved in the talks would agree to it, citing concerns over "language." The draft bill remains stalled.

Straus told the News Service on Monday that House members stand by the version they backed. He declined to say when he last spoke about the matter with Sen. Joseph Boncore, the committee's Senate co-chair.

Asked what steps he planned to take to advance the legislation beyond the apparent impasse, Straus replied, "Communicating with anyone who asks, like you, that the House has a finished document awaiting signatures."

Boncore could not be reached for comment Monday.

Levitan, who said he's spoken to conference committee members, told the News Service he has heard the remaining dispute is not over how to collect demographic data from traffic stops — the original House bill (H 3793) called for tracking of only those ending in citations, while the Senate version (S 2250) targeted every traffic stop — nor over insurance surcharges, but declined to elaborate.

He described the version that drew House signatures as a "good compromise" that lawmakers should enact quickly.

Levitan's remarks are the second instance in the past week of an outside party supporting the agreement that came close to final passage. In an analysis acquired by the News Service, the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security praised the draft bill for requiring data collection only when drivers are cited and for not requiring, as the Senate had proposed, that information to be posted publicly.

A timeline on the legislation's future remains unclear. Both branches have not held any formal sessions in August, an unwritten tradition on Beacon Hill, and plan to resume formal sessions sometime in September.

Straus said he does not believe a full formal session with all 160 representatives and 40 senators is necessary to advance a bill. While conference committee reports are usually handled at formal sessions, either branch could accept the conference committee's report in during a twice-weekly informal session.

Levitan said he expects the matter to come up for final passage in September, but will continue to urge members to find a solution soon. As he put it in his email, "the lives of your constituents are at stake."

"To have it held up any longer is unfathomable," Levitan said in an interview. "All of the data says and all of the evidence says that people get seriously injured and lose their lives due to distracted driving in Massachusetts and across the country."

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